Government spending plays a critical role in protecting and enforcing rights and civil liberties. Empirical evidence for a sample of industrial and developing countries shows that government expenditures on defense, law and order, social security, education, and health care are associated with...

With much healthcare publicly funded, Hong Kong's rapidly aging population will significant raise fiscal pressure over coming decades. We ask what the implications are of meeting these costs by public funding, or private funding voluntarily or through mandates. Our simulations suggest that...

This paper analyzes developments in non-oil tax policy, administration, and revenues in Azerbaijan, and suggests measures for further improvement. The main finding is that Azerbaijan's non-oil tax revenues increased significantly as a share of non-oil GDP in the last five years, but remain below...

This paper develops indices of fiscal transparency for a broad range of countries based on the IMF's Code of Good Practices on Fiscal Transparency, using data derived from published fiscal transparency modules of the Reports on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSCs). The indices covers...

This paper assesses changes in the size and scope of government in 24 transition economies. Whereas these governments have retrenched in terms of public expenditures in relation to GDP, as well as public employment as a share of population, some indicators suggest that size remains high (e.g.,...

Mobilizing more revenue is a priority for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Countries have to finance their development agendas, and weak revenue mobilization is the root cause of fiscal imbalances in several countries. This paper reviews the experience of low-income SSA countries in...

This paper assesses the relative strengths and weaknesses of fiscal institutions in ten Southeastern European countries, using recent benchmarking methodologies developed by FAD. The assessment evaluates each country’s understanding of the scale of the fiscal adjustment challenge, its...

The effectiveness of fiscal policy in smoothing the impact of shocks depends critically on the size of fiscal multipliers. This is particularly relevant for the GCC countries given the need for fiscal policy to cushion the economy from large terms of trade shocks in the absence of an independent...

The paper uses survey data to analyze whether financial market expectations on government budget deficits changed in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom during the period of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). Our findings indicate that accuracy of financial expert deficit forecasts...

Traditional fiscal indicators focused on measures of current deficits and debt miss the potentially important implications of current policies for future public finances. This could be problematic, including in the case of Europe, where population aging is expected to pose additional fiscal...